Road less traveled

There is one thing about the Frontier League that typically leaves nobody happy.

The schedule.

Everybody -- from team owners to managers to players to fans -- thinks the schedulemaker or the league is out to the get their team because of the way the schedule is designed. Happens every year.

The common complaints are too many long road trips without a day off, an unbalanced schedule, too many off days used as travel days, too many long 3-day trips, not enough weekend home games, too many home games early in the season, etc.

Everybody has a complaint, and some of them are valid. The job of the Frontier League schedulemaker is a thankless one. It's also difficult because some teams in the league have to schedule around other events, such as high school, college and youth league tournaments that are played at their home ballpark. For example, I'm told that it's especially difficult to work around dates at Evansville's Bosse Field.

If we're comparing schedules for this season and 2012, then the schedulemaker did a better job this time around, though there are still some puzzling stretches for most teams. For example, Washington, Lake Erie and Traverse City each make two trips to St. Louis. That should never happen, but at least Lake Erie and Traverse City have one of their trips combined with a stop at Southern Illinois, and the Wild Things go to Gateway and then stop at Evansville on the way back to Washington.

Last year, Washington had the schedule from hell in August. Each road trip had at least one 500-mile trip. Three of the August off days had to be used as travel days. This year's August schedule has only one travel/off day and even includes two consecutive off days (Aug. 5 & 6).

Most of the Frontier League teams will be spending less time on the road this season, and not just because the traveling Greys have replaced the London Rippers. While having a traveling team means fewer road games for every other team in the league, the schedulemaker also did a better job of eliminating many brutal road trips that dotted 2012 schedules. For example, Florence had a schedule that called for the Freedom to go from Florence to St. Louis to London and then back to St. Louis. There are no trips that bad this year. Every team does have at least one oddity in the schedule. The team that might have more seems to be Lake Erie, which has a June schedule that is 3 at home, then 3 away, repeat and repeat and repeat. That's in addition to the two trips to St. Louis.

Eleven of the 13 returning FL teams will be spending less time on the road this year, thanks in large part to no London and the addition of the Greys. The team that came out ahead in this area is Washington, which will travel 3,417 fewer miles. That's at least 53 fewer hours spent on the bus.

The following is the mileage each team will travel this year along with their difference from 2012 (Washington led in miles last year with 11,345). When calculating the mileage for each team, I did not take into account if a team travels back and forth each night to play a close rival. For example, when Windy City plays at Joliet, it might opt to drive the 52 miles roundtrip each day of the series instead of one 26-mile trip and three-night stay at the Fairfield Inn in Joliet. I credit Windy City for one 26-mile trip.

Miles   Team  Difference from 2012
11,990 - Greys (NA)
9,390 - Lake Erie (674 more)
9,379 - Traverse City (1,350 less)
8,044 - River City (197 less)
7,928 - Washington (3,417 less)
7,907 - Southern Illinois (1,366 less)
7,846 - Florence (302 less)
7,490 - Evansville (27 less)
7,304 - Rockford (283 less)
7,197 - Gateway (492 less)
7,013 - Schaumburg (268 more)
6,194 - Joliet (137 less)
5,677 - Normal (578 less)
5,650 - Windy City (707 less)